Burnand, who succeeded to the editorship of _Punch_ in 1880, was a Roman Catholic; but it cannot be asserted that he abused his opportunities any more than Charles Cooper, who was a Romanist when he joined the editorial staff of the _Scotsman_, a much more delicate position for a member of that communion. _Punch_ became perhaps less aggressively Protestant, but there was no substantial change in the theological policy of the paper, or in its mainly Erastian attitude in regard to the relations of Church and State. No serious exception can be taken to the verdict on the Revised Version--completed in 1880--as "a very qualified success if not an absolute failure," coupled with a wish to know what were the suggestions for improvements made by our American cousins. The verses in the same year on "A Life's Work and a Life's Wage," recounting the sad experience of a Devonshire curate who after thirty years' work, applied for an order to enter the workhouse as a pauper--are only a renewal of _Punch's_ familiar complaints on the scandal of underpaid clergy. Eleven years later, in 1891, he takes up the same parable _à propos_ of a statement by Mr. Gladstone to the effect that "if the priest is to live, he must beg, earn or steal," comparing the needy vicar, with eighty pounds a year, and the bishop with five thousand. Yet in the same number, under the heading of "Mitred Misery," _Punch_ has an article on the heavy and extortionate fees incurred by bishops on their installation or translation. The victim is represented as just managing to meet the expenses of his elevation to one episcopal see and his translation to another, but declining an archbishopric on the ground that it would land him in the Bankruptcy Court. In an earlier year the contrast between the well-to-do cleric and the poor is ironically emphasized in the "Consolation" administered by Mr. Dean: "Ah, my poor fellow, your case is very sad, no doubt! But remember that the rich have their troubles too. I dare say, now, _you_ can scarcely realize what it is not to know where to find an investment which will combine adequate security with a decent interest on one's money." [Sidenote: _Disestablishment_] Doctrinal opportunism is satirized in Du Maurier's picture of the vicar of a seaside town who was "High Church during the season, and Low all the rest of the year." Much in the same spirit is the list of qualifications necessary for a curate in a country parish: the chief desideratum being that he must be able to play tennis with the vicar's daughters. These jests were almost common form at the close of the Victorian age. A more serious situation arose in 1885 owing to the demand for Disestablishment put forward by the Radicals, but _Punch_ refused to treat it seriously. His cartoon, "A False Alarm," shows a chorus of Conservative owls--including Lord Salisbury and Mr. Cross--crying, "Too-whit, too-whoo, Church in Danger." [Illustration: "TEMPORA MUTANTUR"